Editorial: Other viewpoints

Wednesday

Jun 30, 2010 at 12:01 AMJun 30, 2010 at 10:16 AM

• GREAT LAKES states have been warning it is just a matter of time before Asian carp make their way into the freshwater lakes, the presence of the voracious fish spelling disaster for the ecology of these national treasures and a commercial and sport fishing industry that generates billions of dollars in revenue each year.

• GREAT LAKES states have been warning it is just a matter of time before Asian carp make their way into the freshwater lakes, the presence of the voracious fish spelling disaster for the ecology of these national treasures and a commercial and sport fishing industry that generates billions of dollars in revenue each year. Last Wednesday, a male bighead carp, nearly 3 feet and 20 pounds, was caught live in the Calumet River a bare 6 miles from Lake Michigan.

Close enough for federal authorities and the White House finally to heed appeals to seal off the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River system?

In 2002, monitors detected Asian carp in the upper Illinois River some 60 miles from Lake Michigan. In 2009, a bighead carp was caught within 43 miles of the lake, in the Lockport Pool of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The DNA of Asian carp has been found in various parts of the Chicago waterways system well past the electric barriers designed to keep out the invasive species. The catch last week confirms fears that the electric barriers are not sufficient to stop the threat of the Asian carp to the lakes and the region as a whole.

The danger long has been understood. Imported in the 1970s by fish farmers in the South to clean retention ponds, Asian carp, particularly the bighead and silver carp, have been pushing steadily north through the Mississippi and its tributaries. It is for good reason the carp has been called "the locust of the river." Prolific breeders, they quickly displace native species. They can eat up to 20 percent of their body weight each day in plant and animal plankton. Once established in the lakes, the carp are likely to disrupt the food chain, with disastrous consequences for stocks of native species, such as the walleye, bass and perch, that cannot compete with the appetite of the invaders.

The alarm at the approach of the carp is not exaggerated. According to the Ohio Environmental Council, recreational and commercial fishing, related industries and tourism in the Lake Erie Basin generate nearly $11 billion a year in revenues for Ohio and account for more than a quarter of a million jobs.

In the face of the clear and present danger, it is irresponsible for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and federal authorities, including the U.S. Supreme Court, to persist in dismissing appeals to close the locks in the Chicago waterways that connect Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River system as the most effective deterrent to the advance of the carp.

State officials in Illinois, protecting their shipping industry, vehemently oppose the proposal, of course. The federal and state agencies working together on strategies to control the Asian carp concede that the migration of the species is the most acute aquatic invasive threat facing the lakes today. At stake is not the economic and environmental health of one state but of the entire Great Lakes region. Keep the carp out. Shut down the locks.